Obvious paid editors are obvious

[thekohser]

I see in the news that a buyer has been found ($110 million) to purchase the closed Revel Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. (The massive resort was built for $2.4 billion.) The buyer is Brookfield Asset Management (T-H-L). I'm starting this post without having looked at the edit history of their Wikipedia article, taking a gamble (pardon the pun) that I'll at least find one or two COI editors of that article.

Let's see...

Article created by YUL89YYZ (T-C-L) -- just an ordinary Wikipedia addict, no COI.

Expanded by 66.241.138.122 (T-C-L), whose early focus on Wikipedia was on Brookfield, and he geolocates to Toronto, headquarters city of Brookfield.

Then the article was doubled in size by Couturedenis (T-C-L), a single-purpose account.

Then more work by Octopifungus (T-C-L), another single-purpose special.

Then a ton of work by AndyWillis111 (T-C-L) and AndrewWillis111 (T-C-L), who was blocked for sockpuppet abuse. (Andrew Willis is Senior Vice President, Communications and Media, of Brookfield. He joined the company in 2010, after a two-decade career in business journalism.)

Next you get Hammerstone2012 (T-C-L) (not to be confused with Brookfield's Hammerstone Project (T-H-L)). At least the Wikipediots caught on to this guy being a corporate shill, and they asked him to engage on the Talk pages only (Jimbo style). Then you see the usual response -- compliance, then...

Can I add the info to the Brookfield page?, it has been over 30 days and I have not seen any negative comments on the article's talk page. Thanks. Hammerstone2012 (talk) 12:28, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Then someone invites Hammerstone2012 to the Teahouse.

Oops... I missed an account: AwillisBAM (T-C-L). Andy, is that you again?

And look, another SPI -- Writeforachange (T-C-L) -- adding ridiculous amounts of details about a lawsuit involving Brookfield. Not going to be bothered to learn whether they're pro-Brookfield or anti-Brookfield, but does it matter? They're clearly pushing some agenda.

Hammerstone and Writeforachange have been going at it for some time, as recently as two months ago.

Thank you, Wikipedia. You did not disappoint.

[EricBarbour]

Thanks, that one deserves its own wiki page. Anyone who wished to make life unpleasant for Andy could simply send a copy of this to his boss. If only he'd been a little smarter about choosing his socks. Day-Glo argyle is bad.

[thekohser]

Thanks, that one deserves its own wiki page. Anyone who wished to make life unpleasant for Andy could simply send a copy of this to his boss. If only he'd been a little smarter about choosing his socks. Day-Glo argyle is bad.

What difference did it make to him? There's no warning or notice on his company's page that would give any of its 4,000 monthly readers any clue that the content has been generated by agenda-driven, interested parties. Mission accomplished.

[Poetlister]

Thanks, that one deserves its own wiki page. Anyone who wished to make life unpleasant for Andy could simply send a copy of this to his boss. If only he'd been a little smarter about choosing his socks. Day-Glo argyle is bad.

I hope nobody is suggesting contacting an editor's employer just because he doesn't like the editor.

[thekohser]

Thanks, that one deserves its own wiki page. Anyone who wished to make life unpleasant for Andy could simply send a copy of this to his boss. If only he'd been a little smarter about choosing his socks. Day-Glo argyle is bad.

I hope nobody is suggesting contacting an editor's employer just because he doesn't like the editor.

Nobody here wishes to make life unpleasant for Andy Willis. About the only people I could think of who *would* wish that are the folks like Smallbones, Herostratus, Coretheapple, and Jimbo Wales (unless Brookfield Asset Management is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation, in which case, it's reversed).

[Hex]

Finding a conflict of interest in the edit history of Access to Music (T-H-L) is less like shooting fish in a barrel than it is having to put an immobilised dolphin out of its misery after its lower half somehow got stuck in a barrel.

[thekohser]

Finding a conflict of interest in the edit history of Access to Music (T-H-L) is less like shooting fish in a barrel than it is having to put an immobilised dolphin out of its misery after its lower half somehow got stuck in a barrel.

And the feedback given to the primary editor?

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia...

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk.

If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Such a friendly place now! Back in 2006, I was given the strong impression that we weren't allowed to write articles on behalf of employers or buyers. I guess it's okay nowadays!

[EricBarbour]

North American Medical Management (T-H-L)

Hamese (T-C-L), Annettetodd (T-C-L)

It was longer, until Annettetodd did this. Yes, she works for the company.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/annettetodd

[EricBarbour]

Collabera (T-H-L)

Collabera is an American Multinational Corporation assessed at CMMI Level-5 quality metrics [2] and provides value driven turnkey information technology services and solutions to Fortune 500 organizations from Banking & Financial Services, Retail, Telecommunications, Media, Energy, Technology and Manufacturing Industry Verticals.

Mostly the work of Barsantanu (T-C-L), Punkil.patel (T-C-L), Strata82 (T-C-L) and a series of IPs.

[thekohser]

I hear from Garfield Byrd, the financial wizard at the Wikimedia Foundation, that the WMF uses the investment services of U.S. Trust (T-H-L).

How did their Wikipedia article get so spiffy?

Well, there's this social media and strategic marketing consultant named Natalie, you see. And there's this single-purpose Wikipedia editor named Ntolles1 (T-C-L), you see. She generated this lovely improved article about U.S. Trust in her sandbox. Then along came FreeRangeFrog (T-C-L) to slap it into place in article space for her. No disclosure necessary, since this took place before the WMF's new terms of use!

Now, where have we met FreeRangeFrog before? Oh, that's our unhelpful OTRS man, "Kosten Frosch"!

[EricBarbour]

Helene D. Gayle (T-H-L)

One of the most connected and powerful women on earth. So powerful, Julian Assange complains about her (along with the usual litany of People To Be Paranoid About).

Gayle is "president and CEO of CARE USA".
And her biography was almost entirely the 2009-2010 work of someone called Careusa (T-C-L).
And no one said a word about it.

[EricBarbour]

Tom Preston-Werner (T-H-L), founder of GitHub.

Being a big wheel in the open source world, of course Tom gets "special treatment" on Wikipedia.

Greatly expanded/rewritten this year by David Condrey (T-C-L), aka GitHub user David Condrey.

[The Adversary]

Shabbos App (T-H-L) : "programmers including .... Yossi Goldstein"

User Yossigoldstein (T-C-L) has 100% focus on that article. (But did actually receive a warning on their talk-page....after 3 weeks)

[thekohser]

Reading on the Wikimedia blog, Announcing the second version of the Content Translation tool...

I learn that the tool uses software from Apertium (T-H-L).

Guess who wrote much of that article?

FrancisTyers (T-C-L) (Francis Tyers was affiliated with Apertium)

Mikel.forcada (T-C-L) (Mikel Forcada was a developer of Apertium)

Francis Tyers (T-C-L) (Still the same Francis Tyers as the first one)

Youssefsan (T-C-L) (Youssef Oualmakran was a mentor for Apertium)

Dragonias (T-C-L) (single-purpose account)

Cristipiticul (T-C-L) (single-purpose account)

Muratti1996 (T-C-L) (single-purpose account)

Hectoralos (T-C-L) (Hèctor Alòs i Font was a collaborator with Apertium)

Juanpabl (T-C-L) (Juan Pablo Martinez was affiliated with Apertium)

Kiwibird (T-C-L) (Kevin Brubeck Unhammer has been employed on behalf of The Apertium Project for five years)


Now, riddle me this... why is it okay for people directly affiliated with Apertium to write its article, but Wikimedia Foundation elite will prevent me from editing the Wikipedia article about my business or my employer, come hell or high water?

[EricBarbour]

I learn that the tool uses software from Apertium (T-H-L).

Perhaps we ought to make up a list of contractors, service providers and other suppliers of the WMF and look at their Wikipedia articles. It appears that virtually all of them are allowed to violate COI and the "bright line" routinely. This wouldn't happen unless WMF people were allowing it to happen.

Possible blog post.

[EricBarbour]

Mick Glossop (T-H-L), Mickglossop (T-C-L), yawn again.

[thekohser]

After reading this excellent blog post, I thought it might be interesting to keep tabs on Jeff Finlayson, Boeing employee, to see if he's still editing Wikipedia about his employer (as User:Fnlayson (T-C-L)).

Sure enough! There he is today, in fact, removing a paragraph about an overheating APU on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

How does everyone feel about that? Regarding whether Wikipedia shows or does not show sourced information about problematic equipment on commercial airliners, should the final decision rest with an employee of the manufacturer? Who would dare to ask Jimbo how he feels about it, since he's a frequent user of jet airplanes?

[Poetlister]

Someone else revealing one's identity isn't really the definition of "disclosure", which is something that should come from the agent himself.

As for "small doses"? If you look at Fnlayson's most recent 5,000 edits to Wikipedia, at least 772 of them are about Boeing, and at least 171 are about McDonnell Douglas (merged with Boeing in 1997). Some 200+ edits are about competitor Airbus, and nearly 400 are about competitor Lockheed. Not exactly small doses, would you say?

So roughly 1500 or fewer than 1/3 of his recent posts are about aeroplane manufacturers. He's obviously keen on the topic, but I don't think it's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he works in th eindustry.

[tarantino]

Someone else revealing one's identity isn't really the definition of "disclosure", which is something that should come from the agent himself.

As for "small doses"? If you look at Fnlayson's most recent 5,000 edits to Wikipedia, at least 772 of them are about Boeing, and at least 171 are about McDonnell Douglas (merged with Boeing in 1997). Some 200+ edits are about competitor Airbus, and nearly 400 are about competitor Lockheed. Not exactly small doses, would you say?

So roughly 1500 or fewer than 1/3 of his recent posts are about aeroplane manufacturers. He's obviously keen on the topic, but I don't think it's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he works in th eindustry.

Hey, I'm Jeff Finlayson. I'm an mechancal engineer working in the aerospace industry in Huntsville, Alabama.

Jeff Finlayson
Structural Analyst at Boeing
Huntsville, Alabama Area

[EricBarbour]

So roughly 1500 or fewer than 1/3 of his recent posts are about aeroplane manufacturers. He's obviously keen on the topic, but I don't think it's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he works in th eindustry.

Directly from his edit summary, November 2014:

Edits Article
----------
1260 Boeing 787 Dreamliner
1202 Boeing 777
1147 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
1057 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
1012 Boeing 747
847 General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon
759 Airbus A380
729 Boeing AH-64 Apache
729 Boeing 767
714 Rockwell B-1 Lancer
647 McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
620 Boeing 747-8
616 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III
599 Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II
576 McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

[thekohser]

So roughly 1500 or fewer than 1/3 of his recent posts are about aeroplane manufacturers. He's obviously keen on the topic, but I don't think it's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he works in th eindustry.

And you actually hold an advanced degree from some respectable institution?

[thekohser]

Hey, I'm Jeff Finlayson. I'm an mechancal engineer working in the aerospace industry in Huntsville, Alabama.

So, he went from being Jeff Finlayson, to being Jeff F., to being Jeff, to not having a name.

Sounds like someone trying to hide disclosure, not make it.

[Poetlister]

So roughly 1500 or fewer than 1/3 of his recent posts are about aeroplane manufacturers. He's obviously keen on the topic, but I don't think it's proof beyond reasonable doubt that he works in the industry.

And you actually hold an advanced degree from some respectable institution?

I never said that he disn't work in the industry, merely that you hadn't proved the case beyond reasonable doubt. That was correct.

[thekohser]

That was correct.

I think you're the only person who holds that opinion.

Regardless, as I mentioned from the start, per my blog post it had already been proven beyond reasonable doubt that User:Fnlayson was Boeing employee Jeff Finlayson. Otherwise, I wouldn't have published a blog post asserting that reasonable conclusion.

...one Fortune 30 company that has a non-disclosed employee editor who has worked for over seven years to execute more edits to their Wikipedia article than the next 14 most-active editors combined. The company has donated over $5,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation as a “matching gift” for all of their employees who have made tax-deductible donations to support Wikipedia. What’s the company? Boeing. The editor? Fnlayson, who we suspect is Jeff Finlayson, who only describes himself on Wikipedia as “an engineer in my early 40s working in aerospace industry in Hunt./Madison, Ala”. Jeff Finlayson is a Structural Analyst at Boeing in Alabama.

You're just being deliberately difficult. Please, stop.

[TungstenCarbide]

HatzPresse (T-C-L)

[thekohser]

I thought I'd pop in on the 500 most recent edits. Well, would you look at that! Less than ten seconds before I loaded the page, there was an editor with the edit summary:

(Added reference. Removed "advertising" language)

That's nice to be improving Wikipedia that way, Nfabrizio (T-C-L).

Nfabrizio is a single-purpose account, focusing entirely on Baldwin School (T-H-L).

And what do you know -- Noelle Fabrizio is the Marketing and Communications Assistant at Baldwin School.

Don't get upset with her, though, you anti-paid-editing zealots. Wikipedia needs to close the gender gap, and here's another female editor in your midst. Bonus: she's extroverted, too!

Extra for experts... can you spot the User account of the school's former Communications director, Jessica Covello?

P.S. I would like to thank IP address 50.206.48.250 (T-C-L) in Bryn Mawr, PA (home of the Baldwin School) for being customers of Comcast Business.

[thekohser]

Speaking of the Baldwin School, Wikipedia features articles about 26 private secondary schools in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Among them -- I went through only half of them -- there are editors who are Directors (and Assistant Directors) of Marketing for a school (Ggiddings (T-C-L), Tdmcglinchey (T-C-L)), students (Isaac Oberholzer 3 (T-C-L)), alumni (Trinaradke), accounts with names that you'd have thought Orangemike would have blocked by now (GADevelopment (T-C-L)), IP addresses found close to the schools (216.162.95.25 (T-C-L), 70.44.193.208 (T-C-L), 71.224.198.1 (T-C-L)), IP addresses from affiliated organizations (205.132.44.67 (T-C-L)), and lots of single-purpose accounts (Lacosh (T-C-L), Shelds3 (T-C-L), Youvetried (T-C-L)).

It sure is a good thing that Wikipedia has strict rules against conflict-of-interest editing, isn't it?

[thekohser]

Sure enough! There he is today, in fact, removing a paragraph about an overheating APU on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Take a look at the news today, and you'll see headlines like:

Boeing’s Dreamliner Battery Fire Caused by Design, Probe Finds

Dreamliner Battery Still Not Safe Enough, NTSB Report Says

NTSB Releases Findings on Dreamliner's Battery Fire

Dreamliner Battery Fire Caused by Inadequate Testing, Design

Air-Safety Board Cites Failures Before Dreamliner’s Battery Fire

Dreamliner Battery Fire Caused by Boeing Design, Probe Finds

Probe blames Boeing and FAA for 787 Dreamliner battery fire

Boeing's Dreamliner batteries caught on fire for a few reasons

So, do you think that Boeing employee Fnlayson (T-C-L) will be jumping on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (T-H-L) article to document that? Well, maybe there is no need, since the article already conveys a reasonable amount of coverage of the battery issue, in compliance with the NPOV policy on Wikipedia:

The battery systems are the focus of regulatory investigation due to multiple lithium battery fires, which led to grounding of the 787 fleet starting in January 2013.

What more human knowledge does the reader need? Wikipedia is perfect, as is, with its undisclosed COI employee editing system firmly in place.

[EricBarbour]

Aeon (digital magazine) (T-H-L) is actually a good publication, one of the few left on the web that runs long-form investigative articles.

The WP article has got that paid-editor stink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... /JoeConrad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... ick_hussey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... 08.6.0.179
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... .14.241.16
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... ueryoudoin (ha ha)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... 82.225.189
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... eryoudoin1

It's no wonder that Cyclopia tagged it for COI/etc. Unfortunately, that was back in July, and no one has done anything to it since.

[thekohser]

Nlmshelly (T-H-L)
Likely COI: Employee of Nasty Little Man (T-H-L) (which is an article completely devoid of any third-party references)
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Appears to be at least 90% company and client related
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

One of NLM's top clients is Paul McCartney.

Oh, hi, Shelly Swanson (retweet)!

[thekohser]

Maria.vrabel (T-C-L)
Maria Vrabel

[EricBarbour]

You wanna see assholery on parade?

On 28 December 2013, Steve Madden (T-H-L) looked like this. A litany of his crimes, almost nothing about his shoe company.

Three days later, it was like this.
Thanks to Steven Madden LTD (T-C-L), which was then blocked. Not for biasing an article, for having a "spam user name".

A month later, Miamiller (T-C-L) showed up and displayed a typical careful-paid-editor pattern. Including the addition of photos of Madden's stores, which were blurry enough to look amateur. Is she just a big Madden fan, or smarter than "Steven Madden LTD"? You tell me.

Anyone who has watched The Wolf Of Wall Street has seen some of this.

[thekohser]

When you work in a large corporation, you get exposed to a wide number of vendors and prospective partner organizations. Take, for example, my conversation this morning with someone from MetrixLab.

If you look on Wikipedia for this brand, you'll get this:

The page "MetrixLab" does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.

However, I know that MetrixLab acquired the old MarketTools (T-H-L) company, which does have a Wikipedia article. If you check the Wikipedia infobox for MarketTools and click the URL to http://www.markettools.com, you get redirected to MetrixLab's website.

Thankfully, it appears that no paid or significant COI editors ever worked on MarketTools' Wikipedia article, so the principle of "neutral point of view" is alive and well there. Unfortunately, though, the company MarketTools was bought out in July 2012, but Wikipedia (always improving) makes no mention of that; and the MarketTools brand name ceased operation in May 2014, but you'd never know that from Wikipedia.

If you do drill down into the Wikipedia search for "MetrixLab", you will find this article that mentions MetrixLab:

DeSilva & Phillips (T-H-L)

Why does it mention MetrixLab? Because...

DeSilva+Phillips has focused its practice on seven different areas of expertise within the broader Media and Communications Industry. These areas include: Advertising & Marketing Services,[11] B2B,[12] Book Publishing,[13] Consumer,[14] Digital Media,[15] Education,[16] Events,[17] Healthcare Media & Communications,[18] Information Services[19] and Marketing Research.[20]

A list of recent transactions is included below:

2013, October - DeSilva+Phillips represented Banyan Branch on its sale to Deloitte Digital, a part of Deloitte Consulting LLP.[21]
2013, August - DeSilva+Phillips represented Topspin Partners LBO on the sale of to Moose River Media to Grand View Media Group, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of EBSCO Industries, Inc.[22]
2013, July - DeSilva+Phillips represented Wireless Developer Agency (WDA) on its sale to [x+1].[23]
2013, June - DeSilva+Phillips client, The Foreign Policy Association, has entered an exclusive agreement for the production and promotion of its television program "Great Decisions" with Thomson Reuters.[24]
2013, January - DeSilva+Phillips represented Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in the sale of Whole Living certain assets to Meredith.[25]
2012, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented BroadwayBox.com in its sale to Key Brand Entertainment.[26]
2012, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented ROKKAN in its sale to Publicis Groupe, the third largest communications group in the world.[27]
2012, November - DeSilva+Phillips represented QD Healthcare Group in its sale to Dowden Health Media, a High Road Capital Partners portfolio company.[28]
2012, October - DeSilva+Phillips advised Matterhorn Transactions, Inc. on the partership with LexisNexis® Legal & Professional to offer its web-based transaction analysis tool, Matterhorn, to legal professionals.[29]
2012, October - DeSilva+Phillips represented Annie's in the acquisition of Country Sampler and Smart Retailer magazines from Emmis Communications.[30]
2012, September - DeSilva+Phillips represented Geeknet, Inc. in the sale of its online media business, including Slashdot and SourceForge to Dice Holdings, Inc.[31]
2012, September - DeSilva+Phillips represented The Deal LLC in its sale to TheStreet, Inc.[32]
2012, September - DeSilva+Phillips represented Elsevier, Inc. in the sale of International Medical News Group (IMNG) to Quadrant HealthCom Inc., forming Frontline Medical Communications.[33]
2012, August - DeSilva+Phillips represented Annie's in the acquisition of the popular PBS show, Knit and Crochet Now! from Candice Jensen Productions.[34]
2012, August - DeSilva+Phillips represented Gulfshore Media LLC in the sale of Gulfshore Life and Gulfshore Business magazines to Open Sky Media, Inc.[35]
2012, July - DeSilva+Phillips represented TPG Growth in the sale of MarketTools Research Solutions Inc. to MetrixLab.[36]
2012, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented Affinitive in its sale to Project: WorldWide.[37]
2012, May - DeSilva+Phillips advised VeoMed LLC on the reorganization of its operating structure in preparation for a Series A financing.[38]
2012, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented Fairchild Fashion Media, a unit of Conde Nast in the sale of Fairchild Books to Bloomsbury Publishing plc.[39]
2012, March - DeSilva+Phillips represented PubliGroupe in the formation of a joint venture with MediaMath called Spree7.[40]
2012, March - DeSilva+Phillips represented Performance Racing Industry (PRI) in its sale to Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA).[41]
2012, March - DeSilva+Phillips represented Preston Publications in the sale of Marina Dock Age to [The Waterways Journal, Inc.[42]
2012, February - DeSilva+Phillips represented SitterCity in the acquisition of Assisted Living Source and Home Care Profile to form YearsAhead.com.[43]
2012, February - DeSilva+Phillips Represented Yankee Group in the sale of 4G World to UBM TechWeb.[44]
2011, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented Corporate Executive Board in the sale of Toolbox.com to Ziff Davis.[45]
2011, September - DeSilva+Phillips represented Summit Business Mediain the sale of its insurance information services unit, Highline Data to SNL Financial LC.[46]
2011, September - DeSilva+Phillips represented Preston Publications in the sale of Journal of Analytical Toxicology and Journal of Chromatographic Science to Oxford University Press.[47]
2011, July - DeSilva+Phillips client Greenleaf Book Group received an investment from Noson Lawen Partners.[48]
2011, July - DeSilva+Phillips represented F+W Media, Inc. in the acquisition of The Writers Store.[49]
2011, July - DeSilva+Phillips represented Lake Capital Management in the acquisition of ORC International from Infogroup, a CCMP Capital Advisors Portfolio Company.[50]
2011, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented PhoCusWright Inc in its sale to Northstar Travel Media.[51]
2011, February - DeSilva+Phillips represented The New York Times Company, in the sale of UComparHealthCare.com to MDxMedical, Inc., parent company of Vitals.com.[52]
2010, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. in the sale of Dowden Health Media to High Road Capital Partners.[53]
2010, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. in the sale of Nation's Restaurant News (NRN) to Penton Media.[54]
2010, November - DeSilva+Phillips Represented Vineyard Gazette in the sale of Martha's Vineyard to Jerome and Nancy Kohlberg.[55]
2010, August - DeSilva+Phillips represented Harrison Group in its sale to YouGov plc.[56]
2010, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented BN Media, LLC in the acquisition of Beliefnet from Newscorp.[57]
2010, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented PlattForm Advertising in the sale of Venture Direct Worldwide Magazine Publishing Division to National Ad Sales.[58]
2010, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented PlattForm Advertising in the sale of Venture Direct Worldwide List Services Division to MeritDirect, LLC.[59]
2010, April - DeSilva+Phillips Represented CurtCo Publishing in the sale of Art & Antiques Magazine to Art & Antiques Worldwide Media, LLC.[60]
2010, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented CurtCo Publishing in the sale of San Diego Magazine to San Diego Magazine, LLC.[61]
2010, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented CurtCo Publishing in the sale of Gulfshore Media Group to Gulfshore Media, LLC.[62]
2010, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented Professional Education International in the sale of DesignCon to United Business Media.[63]
2010, January - DeSilva+Phillips represented Questia Media, Inc in its sale to Gale-Cengage.[64]
2009, December - DeSilva+Phillips represented Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. in the sale of Dowden Health Media to Quadrant HealthCom, Inc.[65]
2009, November - DeSilva+Phillips represented Professional Education International (PEI) in the Sale of Broadband World Forum to Informa Telecoms & Media.[66]
2009, July - DeSilva+Phillips represented CK Media in its sale to New Track Media.[67]
2009, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented Move, Inc. in the sale of Welcome Wagon to South Florida Media Group.[68]
2009, June - DeSilva+Phillips represented Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. in its sale of 5 major consumer magazine titles (Popular Photography, Flying, Boating, Sound & Vision, American Photo) to Bonnier Corporation.[69]
2009, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented Microsoft in the sale of Franchise Gator (Online Lead Generation Company) to Landmark Interactive.[70]
2008, November - DeSilva+Phillips represented Ripple6, Inc. in its sale to Gannett Co..[71]
2008, October - DeSilva+Phillips represented Pulvermedia in the sale of its various assets to Virgo Publishing.[72]
2008, September - DeSilva+Phillips Represented The Winner's Circle in its sale to Barron's (Dow Jones & Company).[73]
2008, April - DeSilva+Phillips represented Special Ops Media in its sale to LBi International.[74]
2008, April - DeSilva+Phillips Represented SQAD, Inc. in the acquisition of Wrapsidy, LLC.[75]
2008, March - DeSilva+Phillips represented Answerology in its Sale to Hearst Corporation.[76]
2008, March - DeSilva+Phillips represented The TDA Group in its sale to CyberMedia.[77]
2008, February - DeSilva+Phillips Represented Virgo Publishing in its sale to Arlington Capital Partners .[78]
2008, February - DeSilva+Phillips represented CurtCo Media in the sale of Worth magazine to Sandow Media.[79]
2008, February - DeSilva+Phillips represented Ascend Media in the sale of its healthcare media group to Intellisphere, LLC.[80]
2008, February - DeSilva+Phillips represented CBI Research, Inc. in its sale to Advanstar.[81]
2008, January - DeSilva+Phillips arranged a Senior Credit Facility for Intellisphere, LLC. with Merrill Lynch Capital.[82]

Good gravy, who is tending to that laundry list of DeSilva & Phillips transactions? It must be a very dedicated volunteer Wikipedian, to so meticulously reference (to www.desilvaphillips.com/DealProfile.aspx pages) each and every one of those transactions, right?!

That would be none other than single-purpose account, Madealmaker (T-C-L). Get it? DeSilva & Phillips specializes in merger and acquisition deal making. So, M-a-deal-maker!

Oh, and don't forget IP 38.96.145.178 (T-C-L) -- the Cogent Internet connection at the headquarters of DeSilva & Phillips.

Madealmaker has had full sway over his article since August 2010. That probably translates to about 4,800 page views. We are protected from advocacy and conflict of interest, thanks to Jimbo and his pals Coretheapple and Smallbones, who don't allow any paid advocacy editing, so Wikipedia is free of that sort of blight, leaving behind only great articles like the one about DeSilva & Phillips, with its 82 independent reference citations.

[Jim]

with its 82 independent reference citations.

This is why we can't have good things, isn't it?

Now that a heap of people in a "respected" position to fix that have seen this, let's see which one of them is as keen to do so as they were to edit war over the Wikipediocracy image tag.

Synchronising watches.... Now.

[thekohser]

Now that a heap of people in a "respected" position to fix that have seen this, let's see which one of them is as keen to do so...

If someone does go to town on that article, then they are guilty of proxying for a banned user.

[Jim]

Now that a heap of people in a "respected" position to fix that have seen this, let's see which one of them is as keen to do so...

If someone does go to town on that article, then they are guilty of proxying for a banned user.

I know, right...

It's hard to be a wikipedian.

Or maybe not. Subtitles for the French speaking amongst us.

Caravan site reference gratis.

[thekohser]

Here are some brand-new (likely) COI editors!

Samtintin101 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Employee of or PR specialist for Volcanic Air
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100% so far
Ever warned on Talk page: Speedy deletion nomination
Blocked: No


Then there's a new editor helping to close the gender gap. It's EmilyBitGold (T-C-L), with her articles about BitGold and BitGold Inc. Oops! They've been deleted already.


And here's another:
Lambalexandern (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Employee of or PR specialist for Transfast, considering the brand-new article of 7,000 bytes
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Nearly 100% so far
Ever warned on Talk page: Speedy deletion nomination
Blocked: No


Oh, and would you look at this one -- so cute!
It's User Rmckayfleming (T-C-L) writing the biography of Chalk.com co-founder, William Zhou (T-H-L). Who is the other co-founder of Chalk? None other than Ryan McKay-Fleming (no relation to User:Rmckayfleming, of course).

[EricBarbour]

Matt Mullenweg (T-H-L) is one of the founder/creators of Wordpress.

His Wikipedia article was heavily diddled in March 2012 by an apparent paid editor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ons/RTN56U

So glad he could afford to get his Wikipedia bio "fixed", as if it were "broken". Have a sweet day.

[SB_Johnny]

Climate-friendly gardening (T-H-L) looks quite professional and well-linked. A good addition to the encyclopedia-like website (though I suspect the term is a neologism or perhaps even a(n informal) trademark), but Jimmy's bright line rule was probably broken.

[thekohser]

Climate-friendly gardening (T-H-L) looks quite professional and well-linked. A good addition to the encyclopedia-like website (though I suspect the term is a neologism or perhaps even a(n informal) trademark), but Jimmy's bright line rule was probably broken.

Rowan Adams (Isle of Wight) does appear to be crazy about gardens, but I'm not seeing how she profits financially from that Wikipedia article. What is amazing is that the article has stood for 10 months, without so much as a tiny poke or editorial touch from any other editor. (The IP address is likely Adams'.)

[Notvelty]

Climate-friendly gardening (T-H-L) looks quite professional and well-linked. A good addition to the encyclopedia-like website (though I suspect the term is a neologism or perhaps even a(n informal) trademark), but Jimmy's bright line rule was probably broken.

Wow. Just wow.

Perhaps "climate friendly medication" might be the answer.

[thekohser]

Today's gem is from the "closing the gender gap" file.

Dikeoucollection (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Could this possibly be Devon Dikeou (T-H-L)?
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100% so far, four years running, right on up to this month
Ever warned on Talk page: Just some image warnings
Blocked: No, of course not. Would you block this nice lady? I know I wouldn't. I'll bet mean old Orangemike would, though.



Dikeou is the editor and publisher of Zingmagazine (T-H-L), you know. That Wikipedia article has had three main editors:

Aknoeb (T-C-L) - Anna Knoebel was Zingmagazine's editor back when Aknoeb was singlehandedly creating the Wikipedia article about Zingmagazine.



Look at that back! Who could block a back like that?

71.39.244.205 (T-C-L) - CenturyLink (Denver) IP address that points to host, dikeou.com, the web home of Denver-born Devon Dikeou.

65.112.206.178 (T-C-L) - CenturyLink (Denver) IP address from a Hyatt hotel.

[Snowtrooper]

Found this today: Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (T-H-L)

Started by KCMiller1 (T-C-L). And who founded this Institute? Why it's KC Miller, of course!

Also edited by Swihadoo (T-C-L), who has no other contributions elsewhere.

Along with the usual gnomes and new page patrollers, it has also been edited by a myriad of IPs:

98.174.244.194 (T-C-L)

98.167.208.194 (T-C-L)

75.224.195.25 (T-C-L)

68.230.114.158 (T-C-L)

[thekohser]

Snahhas (T-C-L) (single-purpose account) authored most of Decision Analyst (company) (T-H-L).

And here is Sarah Nahhas.

[thekohser]

There I was, reading the Wikimedia Foundation's blog post about Yale's Information Society Project (T-H-L), and so I wanted to know more about this effort by Yale University. I can trust Wikipedia to be neutral and free of paid advocacy editors, so there I turned! Wikipedia taught me that Dr. Laura E. DeNardis was the Project's Executive Director from 2008-2011. How did I learn this? I simply reviewed the contributions of the creator of Wikipedia's article about the Information Society Project...

Drled (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Is it possible that Drled is Dr. Laura E. DeNardis?
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Appears to be over 90%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, in August 2012, she was told "Please do not write an article about yourself."
Blocked: Nope

In fact, even after that 2012 warning, she came back the following year to promote her own book.

Hey folks, I was reading the Wikimedia Foundation blog today, and I was fascinated by this story about "When free speech conflicts with public health objectives", which was discussed at the Yale "Information Society Project (T-H-L)" Conference. I remembered back to this previous post I made back in May 2014.

I wanted to learn even more about the Information Society Project, so what better resource to pick up than my online copy of Wikipedia? I know its content can be trusted, because it's all verified as "neutral", and there is even a months-tested Terms of Service that prohibits paid editors from contributing content without disclosing it, am I right?

Well, I see that Dr. Laura was still fixing up Wikipedia to make sure her maiden name wasn't in use. But here's the really keen thing. While Dr. LED was the former head of the Information Society Project, the new director is a nice lady named Valerie Belair-Gagnon.



And look! There's a new Wikipedia user account to match up with Valerie's interests. The account is named (appropriately enough) Vbginc (T-C-L). Get it? It's like Valerie Belair-Gagnon, Incorporated!

But, uh oh... no disclosure on her Talk page or in any edit summaries or in any Article Talk pages, about why she seems to be a single-purpose account fixated on the Information Society Project. Could that be a violation of the Terms of Service? Probably so, but what are we to do, given that the WMF blog is (again) showcasing this Yale organization? Is anyone allowed to report this probable TOS violation to the WMF? Is anyone permitted to gently notify Vbginc that they may be doing things not exactly right? Maybe User CPFraser12 (T-C-L) could help us out, since he also seems deeply committed to the Wikipedia article about the ISP. Another frequent editor is Yale University's IP address, at 130.132.173.151.

I wonder what Jimbo thinks of all of this? He's been very clearly opposed to self-interested parties editing Wikipedia articles directly, hasn't he? Maybe he could have a word with Ms. Belair-Gagnon.

[EricBarbour]

Hey folks, I was reading the Wikimedia Foundation blog today, and I was fascinated by this story about "When free speech conflicts with public health objectives", which was discussed at the Yale "Information Society Project (T-H-L)" Conference. I remembered back to this previous post I made back in May 2014.

This would make a great WO blog post. In fact, you could make another COI salad post now, with all these incidents to choose from.

[thekohser]

This would make a great WO blog post. In fact, you could make another COI salad post now, with all these incidents to choose from.

Yeah, I could do it any day of the week. But nobody will PAY me for it.

[EricBarbour]

This would make a great WO blog post. In fact, you could make another COI salad post now, with all these incidents to choose from.

Yeah, I could do it any day of the week. But nobody will PAY me for it.

Okay, then anyone else who reads this thread could do it. It's all written up and just needs a skeleton.

Did we ever create a "Kohs's Law" before? Because that would make a great one:

"I think we've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that just about every Wikipedia article about a business, organization, or living person has been touched up, at least in some part, by at least one editor who seems to have a conflict of interest or a single purpose in editing Wikipedia."

[Poetlister]

"I think we've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that just about every Wikipedia article about a business, organization, or living person has been touched up, at least in some part, by at least one editor who seems to have a conflict of interest or a single purpose in editing Wikipedia."

Of course, that shows how stupid the Wikipedia definition of "conflict of interest" is, Apart from gnomes and people trying to raise their edit count, few people edit an article unless they are interested in its topic. Those who are favourable, e,g. who are friends of the BLP subject or work for the firm, are more likely to be accused of COI than those who may be less favourable. That's a recipe for slanted articles.

Actually, some of the worst COI editors are those writing about their old schools, but nobody seems to mind them.

[thekohser]

Biteglobal (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Employee of Bite Global, a subsidiary of Next Fifteen Communications (T-H-L)
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes
Blocked: No

Where is Orangemike when he's needed?

Note: Bite PR was Wikia, Inc.'s communications agency of record. Bite also provided Jimbo with his personal assistant, Sierra Lovelace (Warner), who is now with Google.